Azure Synapse to Microsoft Fabric Migration: A Technical Deep Dive for Unified Analytics

Many organizations running Azure Synapse Analytics face the growing challenge of managing fragmented tools like Synapse SQL Pools, Spark, Data Factory, and Data Lake Storage. While Azure provides flexibility and scalability, disconnected services can lead to rising costs, integration headaches, and slower time-to-insight.

Microsoft Fabric changes the game by unifying your Synapse-driven data estate into a single, AI-ready SaaS platform. LevelShift helps Synapse customers modernize their environment, reduce complexity, and simplify insights with a structured migration to Microsoft Fabric.

In this blog, we break down the following:

• Technical limitations of Azure Synapse Analytics
• How Microsoft Fabric resolves those issues
• Pricing and licensing details
• Key personas and industries that benefit
• AI and Copilot advantages
• Governance and security improvements

It also delves into the technical aspects of transitioning from Azure’s legacy frameworks to Microsoft Fabric, highlighting architectural considerations, data flow transformations, governance enhancements, and the infusion of AI capabilities.

Technical Limitations of Traditional Synapse-centric Azure Environments

Azure Synapse Analytics and its supporting services deliver powerful analytics, but businesses often face these challenges:

• Fragmented Data Silos: Managing Synapse SQL, Spark, Data Factory, and storage separately leads to disconnected datasets and slower insights.
• Complex Data Pipelines: Orchestrating Synapse and Data Factory pipelines across multiple environments increases maintenance, error risk, and development time.
• Inconsistent Governance: Applying unified security, lineage tracking, and compliance across Synapse, Data Factory, and Data Lake Storage requires significant manual effort.
• Scaling Constraints: Scaling Synapse and related tools independently creates inefficiencies, performance bottlenecks, and unnecessary costs.
• Overlapping Licenses: Azure’s separate pricing for Synapse, Data Factory, and storage adds to administrative complexity and unpredictable expenses.

Orchestrating seamless data flows across these siloed components demands significant custom development and ongoing maintenance. This fragmentation often results in data duplication, inconsistent metadata, and increased storage costs.

Furthermore, enterprises lack a unified monitoring layer, making it difficult to track data lineage, pipeline health, and performance metrics across disparate tools. The pay-as-you-go pricing model, although flexible, can lead to cost leakage due to loosely coupled services and overlapping resources. Security and governance also present ongoing hurdles, as RBAC, audit trails, and data policies must be manually configured and maintained across each service.

How Microsoft Fabric solves Synapse challenges

Organizations with heavy Synapse, Data Factory, and Azure Data Lake dependencies benefit the most by modernizing to Fabric. It offers:

• OneLake: Fabric’s unified storage layer integrates Synapse-linked Data Lake, eliminating silos and reducing data duplication.
• Integrated Workloads: SQL, Spark, Data Pipelines, and Real-Time Analytics operate within one governed, AI-ready environment.
• Built-In Governance: Fabric centralizes data security, lineage, and compliance using Microsoft Purview and Azure AD integrations.
• Elastic Scalability: Fabric optimizes performance and cost with dynamic scaling of storage, compute, and real-time workloads.

 

Why Shifting to Microsoft Fabric is a Wise Move

Microsoft Fabric offers a cleaner architecture, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), built-in AI, and simplified governance while remaining deeply integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem you already use.

Fabric Component	Replaces/Enhances	Key Benefit
Fabric Data Pipelines	Azure Data Factory	Unified orchestration, real-time monitoring
Fabric Data Warehouse	Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools	Scalable, cost-efficient lake-centric compute
Fabric Lakehouse & Spark	Synapse Spark	Collaborative, low-code notebooks with unified storage
OneLake	ADLS Gen2	Centralized storage, shortcut-enabled access
Fabric Real-Time Analytics	Event Hubs, IoT Streams	Native, scalable real-time insights
Power BI (Integrated)	Power BI Standalone	Embedded reporting and live dashboards
Fabric Copilot & AI	Azure ML & External AI integrations	Simplified, AI-infused pipelines

Licensing and Pricing Simplified

Fabric offers capacity-based licensing that simplifies operations compared to managing individual Synapse, Data Factory, and Power BI SKUs.

Fabric SKU	Monthly Price (Est.)	Use Case
F2 Capacity	~$262	Development and testing workloads
F64 Capacity	~$8,389	Enterprise-grade analytics and production workloads
Power BI Pro	$10/user	Secure collaboration and publishing
Premium Capacity (Fabric)	Starts at $4,995	Required for advanced Fabric workloads

 

Note: Licenses can be purchased via the Azure portal or Microsoft 365 Admin Center. LevelShift helps right-size your Fabric capacity with our ROI assessment tools.

Key Personas and Industries that Benefit from Synapse to Fabric Migration

Here are several common use cases.

Persona	Fabric Advantage
Data Engineers	Simplified pipeline migration, unified monitoring
Data Scientists	AI-ready environment with Spark, SQL, and notebooks
BI Analysts	No-copy access to real-time data models and reports
IT Admins	Centralized governance, security, and lineage
CIOs/CTOs	Reduced TCO, faster innovation, AI-enabled architecture

What’s your Microsoft Fabric usecase? We can help you with a solution

Why Choose LevelShift for Your Azure-to-Fabric Shift

Azure Synapse environments often become complex, fragmented, and hard to govern. LevelShift helps you simplify and modernize with expert assessments, phased Fabric migration plans, built-in governance, and ongoing optimization — all backed by Microsoft-recognized expertise in Synapse, Analytics, and Data Platform transformation. The blog summarizes what Microsoft Fabric is and explores the business and technical case for migration.

As a Microsoft Fabric consulting company with deep experience in Azure and Fabric:

• We assess your existing Azure workloads and provide a Fabric Readiness Report.
• Help build a phased migration roadmap that includes Synapse, Data Factory, and other relevant systems.
• Implement governance-first frameworks to meet compliance.
• Offer additional data compliance services to maximize Fabric ROI.
• Provide ongoing managed services post-migration.

We have also earned specializations in Azure Analytics and Azure Data Warehouse migration in addition to being a Microsoft Solutions partner for Data and AI. Our Fabric consulting services offer a simplified, unified approach to licensing and governance of data and application workflows. It resolves the silos and integration pain points that have long challenged enterprise IT teams.

Are you ready to explore the possibilities of Fabric for your Synapse environment?

🚀 Book a 1:1 Readiness Assessment with LevelShift